Sam

Barely. Certainly not how to find them. But then, my daughter didn’t even recognize The Louisiana Purchase and the topic involves westward expansion in the early 1800s. So my expectations of what he has taught are pretty low.

And my parental opinion as well.

Thanks, Rain! I’ll look through and see if I can find anything that will help her.

Unfortunately her school really only has someone who loosely manages the library materials. They cut the real position a few years back. (And I suspect the teacher’s ego is too big to work with someone else anyway)

I wouldn’t turn it down! While I know how to do research, I’m fairly clueless about 8th-grade appropriate social studies resources these days. Pretty sure it’s changed a bit since the mid-90s.

He’s an awful teacher and an unpleasant person, which combined with my stubborn daughter who has little tolerance for assholes (a positive trait, in my opinion) is quite the situation.

They have no textbook, no resources were provided, and it seems like they’ve had little to no instruction on how to find resources. About a week was given, most of which is school vacation or weekend. The teacher, who is a hard grader,claims it will take 2-4 hours. This is ridiculous, right?

2/2

My daughter (13) has a social studies essay assignment in which she also needs to include a map and timeline, with 10 sources of which 5 have to be primary and one a video, on a very specific subtopic (“Hamilton vs Jefferson”) of a topic they barely covered in class (westward expansion).

1/2

If I were on Jeopardy (I won't be), and didn't mention it here (I would), the question is if you would know that it's me. I did include my last name in my early Twitter days and I think I posted a picture of myself twice, so there's a chance!

@fromsuperheroes.com I traveled back in time to 2017 to listen to your episode on Logan now that I’ve finally watched the movie (yeah, yeah, I know), and the most shocking thing was that the Simple Question was “Did you ENJOY it”. How times have changed.

Happens to me all the time.

That one didn’t click with me as much, but it definitely warrants the second viewing I’ll give it eventually.

That and Princess Kaguya were probably my favorites.

When I watched all of the Ghibli movies for the first time a couple years back, The Wind Rises was one of my favorites. Such a good movie.

I begrudgingly gave you your second. One to go.

First book of the year was the first volume of "On the Calculation of Volume" by Solvej Balle and translated by Barbara Haveland. It's a quick 160-pager that's the quietest time loop story I've experienced. Almost nothing happens... and I'm very much looking forward to reading the next volume.

Having done one of the largest studies out there on fine-free policies, I can say with great confidence that while removing fines does slightly push back average return times, it's not enough to affect overall circ stats and still has items being returned on average well before their due dates.

I refused to continue that conversation any further since they were just so ridiculous.

I once had someone on the other site tell me that people who return books late should be arrested and go to jail.

Books on a shelf, including the complete novels of Kurt Vonnegut, the complete Books or Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin, The Nice House on the Lake by James Tynion and Alvaro Martinez Bueno, That's Not How It Happened by Craig Thomas, On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle translated by Barbara Haveland, and The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton.

Now that the last one has arrived, here's my official Christmas book haul. There are at least three time loop stories in here, because of course.

What part of my list makes you think I like torturing myself?

Especially those who know that I work from home.

I can’t believe nobody has questioned that entry on my list.

Ooh, is books good?

Okay, here's a question. Based on what you can figure out about my tastes from this list, what should I read in 2026?

Saga (Compendium 1) / Vaghan & Staples
The Beatles: The BBC Archives / Howlett
XX / Hughes
The Invention of Hugo Cabret / Selznick
The End of the World as We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King's The Stand / Golden & Keene

Ascender / Lemire & Nguyen
Wilco: Sunken Treasure / Grierson
The Stand / King
The Left Hand of Darkness / Le Guin
The Staircase in the Woods / Wendig
Gideon Falls / Lemire, Sorrentino, & Stewart
Limetown / Smith, Akers, & Bronkie
Ghibliverse / Leader & Cunningham

While I'm not a voracious reader (especially for a librarian), I did read some interesting books this year. So here's everything I read in 2025:

How to Poo At Work / Mats & Enzo
The Mysteries / Watterson & Kascht
Shuna's Journey / Miyazaki
Ghibliotheque / Leader & Cunningham
Paprika / Tsutsui

Drawing of a small purple octopus (Pip) sitting on the lap of an unimpressed giant squid telling him all the things he wants for Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

Frosty the Snowman

Ohhhhhh... Blue Prince, like... Blueprints. I just got that now. I'm so smart.